The sonata is to the piano what the symphony
is to the orchestra; although the means of ex-
piesticn are different the functions are simi-
lar. Into these distinctive heroic molds the
composer pours his most ambitious musical
ideas and manipulates them with all the in-
vention and skill at his command. The sym-
phony orchestra’s canvas is grand and multi-
textured while the solo piano conjures up a
more personal means of communication, more
stark and spare. Still each, the symphony and
the piano sonata, reveals the composer at his
most profound—and in the case of the latter,
most intensely private and virtuosic, demand-
ing an interpreter of extraordinary musicality,
intelligence and commanding technique.
Of all the major composers who flourished
in the first half of the 20th century only Sergei
Prokofieff (1891-1953) produced a substantial
number of solo piano sonatas: nine, in fact
(Barték and Stravinsky composed but one
each). Of Prokofieff's output, the Sonata No. 6,
Op. 82, written in 1939-40, is pivotal. It was
created some 17 years after the fifth sonata,
and during that period a great deal happened
to the composer. For more than half of that
time Prokofieff lived away from his native Rus-
sia (not as an exile, as is popularly thought),
in France and in the United States, where he
acquired a reputation as an iconoclastic com-
poser, a stunning pianist and, because of his
penetrating wit, a Bad Boy of Music. Homesick
after 16 years of wandering, he returned to So-
viet Russia in the mid ’30s.
Prokofieff's experimental bent, his sardonic,
cosmopolitan outlook and his outspokenness
earned him several public reprimands from the
Soviet Musical Establishment. He refused,
however, to bow to their will and continued to
be himself. He could write music of great ac-
cessibility and charm—and he did (the film
scores, ballets and children’s pieces)—but he
also sought expression for his deeper side, in
uncompromising works. One of these, and one
that readily placed him temporarily on the offi-
cial blacklist, was the Sixth Sonata. One of his
most majestic compositions, it is typically Pro-
kofieffian in the grandeur of the first movement,
the wit of the second, the wistful beauty of the
third and the propulsive drive of the finale.
But it did not please; shortly after Prokofieff
played it for the first time, during a radio re-
cital on April 8, 1940, he was roundly attacked.
The Party line may be summarized in the words
of Rena Moisenko (from her book, ‘Realist
Music’), who found that ‘‘decorated with fist-
thumping effects, this sonata is a purely for-
malistic composition, embodying the ‘Art for
Art's Sake’ idea, so much deprecated by So-
viet musicologists.”" Since then, of course, the
musical climate has changed, and the sonata
has come to be appreciated as one of Proko-
fieff's major achievements. One might assume,
perhaps, that the deprecating Soviet musicol-
ogists have since returned to repairing tractors,
as Prokofieff's contributions are more widely
recognized as one of the glories of Russian
music.
samuel Barber (b. 1910) was not subjected
to slings and arrows when his Piano Sonata,
Op. 26, was introduced in 1950. It was im-
mediately hailed as a major addition to the
literature for solo piano and a milestone in
American music. #
The sonata has a rather interesting genesis.
Following his discharge from the U.S. Air Force
in 1945, the composer entered upon one of his
most productive periods, which culminated in
the haunting classic Knoxville: Summer of
1915. Shortly after its completion Barber was
commissioned by the League of Composers
to write a piano sonata—the backing for which
commission was provided by Irving Berlin and
Richard Rodgers, two gentlemen who have
also contributed richly to the American musi-
cal scene.
The sonata has been called by one critic
“a virtuoso's paradise” (it was introduced by
no less a virtuoso than Vladimir Horowitz); at
the same time it is recognized as a composi-
tion of great musical substance. While Barber
has been saddled with the label ‘Neo-Ro-
mantic,” his musical speech in this four-move-
ment sonata is decidedly contemporary: it
could only have been written today—and it
could only have been written by Samuel
Barber. He even draws ingeniously upon
twelve-tone serial procedures. But never is the
clarity of his writing or his innate lyricism
smothered in mere technique; the “sound” is
at once distinctively personal and American.
The result is a masterpiece that belongs in the
company of other great American piano sona-
tas—by Charles Ives, Charles Griffes, Aaron
Copland and others. But also it stands alone,
like a solitary, beautiful mountain.
—FDWARD JABLONSKI
Biographer of contemporary composers, from Gershwin
to Schoenberg, Mr. Jablonski is currently working on
an encyclopedia of American music for Doubleday.
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